the GOP "ship of fools"

The Economist's article about the GOP's "Ship of Fools" is brutal in its assessment of Republican failure:

There are any number of reasons for the Republican Party's defeat on November 4th. But high on the list is the fact that the party lost the battle for brains. Barack Obama won college graduates by two points, a group that George Bush won by six points four years ago. He won voters with postgraduate degrees by 18 points. [...] The Republicans lost the battle of ideas even more comprehensively than they lost the battle for educated votes, marching into the election armed with nothing more than slogans.

[...]

Richard Weaver, one of the founders of modern conservatism, once wrote a book entitled "Ideas have Consequences"; unfortunately, too many Republicans are still refusing to acknowledge that idiocy has consequences, too.

The Republicans not only lost the battle of ideas, but they no longer even have ideas which are relevant to the problems of the twenty-first century. Their policies are based upon a fantasy world build up in their echo chamber which ignores any facts which conflict with their ideology, believing that any sources of information which do not repeat their talking points as fact are showing liberal bias. They dig themselves deeper into the hole by promoting anti-intellectual incompetents such as George Bush and Sarah Palin while attacking those who demand competence and an understand of the issues by government leaders as elitists.